


baby, go on, twist the knife.

by reveries_passions



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, breakup fic ???, i am sorru, im so sorry, love you goodbye in fic form
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 06:19:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15406893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reveries_passions/pseuds/reveries_passions
Summary: “I...I need time. But for now...I can’t. I can’t do it. I’m sorry, Harry.”The line goes dead, right along with a the piece of Harry’s soul Louis has held safe and sound since he first kissed him, beneath a quiet moon and two single bright, twinkling stars in the front door threshold of the X Factor House.Stars don’t live forever. That’s the first thing Harry thinks.But I still love him.That’s the second.or the canon compliant story of how love you goodbye was really written.





	baby, go on, twist the knife.

**Author's Note:**

> happy 1d anniversary lmao enjoy this sad piece of trash

It’s 4am when Louis says the dreaded words Harry’s been waiting for. 

_ “I can’t do this anymore.”  _

The words are spoken with a tremor, like Louis can’t quite believe what he’s saying either. So trembly the soundwaves could just waver off into the air and become part of the atmosphere; so soft they could almost be a whisper, a secret, a  _ thought.  _

But the words are real. They’re spoken. Harry hears them, the soundwaves reach his ears, and he realizes a little belatedly that of course, they were never going to last. Not in this world. Not with the odds stacked against them. Not like this. 

_ “I can’t do this anymore.”  _

He can almost make out the time from where he’s coiled at the foot of the bed, face wet with tears and vision blurry, curled in on himself with his own arms wrapped around his own shoulders to compensate for what Louis isn’t giving him. Louis hasn’t given him a lot lately. With a stinging pang of bitterness, he flicks hair off his face and grits his teeth. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“This,” Louis says, and he’s so calm. He’s so, so calm. “Just. This, Harry. Everything.”

_ Everything.  _

“Fuck you,” Harry spits, and Louis takes a step back like he’s been slapped, eyes wide. “Fuck you, Louis Tomlinson.”

“I can’t  _ do this _ !” Louis shouts at him once he’s regained himself. “I can’t do it anymore! I’m done!” 

Harry can’t figure out if he regrets the next words that come out of his mouth or not. 

“Then  _ leave _ !” he yells, every muscle in his body trembling, every bone quaking, every nerve vibrating. Then leave, his brain repeats over and over.  _ Then leave. Then leave. Then leave.  _

Louis says, “Fine.” Harry almost misses it over the ringing in his ears. 

It’s ridiculous. Louis can’t leave. Louis lives here. Louis lives with Harry in the house they share, with their dogs and their framed photos and their bed and their dining table. Louis doesn’t belong anywhere else. 

But Louis seems to think he does. 

Harry watches him blankly from the corner of their bedroom, trying to understand how he can look so calm while everything inside is falling into thousands of tiny fragments, splintering; his heart, his  _ soul.  _ How his hands shake but no words fall from his mouth. How he hears the jingle of Louis picking up his keys—maybe that means he’ll come back?—and can’t seem to do anything. Like time is frozen, and Harry’s heart with it. 

“You can’t—” 

The front door slams shut, and all he can think is how Louis could possibly leave while wearing the fur-lined denim jacket Harry bought him for his twenty-second birthday.

 

▽

 

They always promised each other that if things ever ended between them, it wouldn’t be bitter. It’d be a sad ending if there ever was one, but Louis and Harry didn’t believe in angry ends; if they were ever that unhappy with each other anymore, it would make sense to part ways. 

Despite this, all Harry feels is bitter, cruel, smack-in-the-face resentment. Resentment at Louis, resentment at himself, resentment at the world for doing this to them. How were they  _ supposed  _ to survive this? How were they supposed to survive everything? Nobody survives this. Most people give up. 

Of course, Louis and Harry weren’t meant to give up. They were meant to survive. On the other hand, apparently not.

It doesn’t take long for the boys to find out. It’s not like they haven’t had their fair share of scares from the two of them; in the early days, when they were clueless and terrified, a couple years after that, when it got too much to handle, yet a year later, when ‘cheating’ was a stupid thing to disagree over, and now. 

Now...there’s something different about now. Something Harry hasn’t ever felt before. 

There’s also the familiar terror of making an album while hating each other. When they’re together, it’s easy to write songs. When they’re apart, the songs aren’t really songs, just hateful letters and memoirs of secret fights and long-hidden scars. 

So when Niall phones in the early dawn with the sound of distant guitar strumming along in the background and slow voices lulling the chorus of a song they’ll never finish, there’s not much he can do in terms of consolation. Harry feels past broken. Harry feels  _ destroyed.  _

He stays curled on his side in bed until his knees ache from underuse and his back is stiff and all his joints are crackly. Even then, he only moves when the rough scrape of his pillow against the dried tears on his face become too maddening to bear. 

Alone in this empty house, Harry brushes his teeth and washes his face. He wants to call Louis, find out where he is, what he’s doing. If he’s still as mad as he was last night. If he just needed a refresher, if he’s okay now. If he’s ready to face reality again. Harry also can’t stand the thought of hearing Louis’ voice again. 

There’s a hollow pit in his stomach. He doesn’t feel sad anymore; not enough to cry, at least. Just a little empty. 

He goes back to bed after some mindless wandering. Niall and Liam know better than to check in now. He’ll talk when he’s ready, and so will Louis. 

 

▽

 

The voicemail comes in at five past midnight. 

Harry sniffs and clears his throat, another fresh batch of tears having made their way out of his system after Louis’ non-return. Normally he’d be back by now. Normally he’d have apologized and they’d have kissed and had make-up sex and ordered takeout of Harry’s choice after Louis’ insistence and watched a show and fallen asleep on each other’s shoulders after a nice, mutual cry, and a deep, sappy conversation. 

None of that has happened. All Harry gets is a voicemail—a one minute and fifty three seconds long voicemail. 

His phone is hot when he holds it to his ear, from the mindless scrolling he’s used to distract himself from what feels like his whole world falling apart. Because what if this is it? What if Louis doesn’t come back this time? 

He hits play. 

There’s a still crackle and a deep breath. 

“ _ Hey, Harry. _ ” 

Harry closes his eyes. 

“ _ I. Um. I don’t really know how to say this. I’m at Liam’s. Right now. So I’m...I’m fine. _ ” There’s a pause, just for Louis’ words to dig a little deeper, cut a little harder. Liam. He’s with Liam. Liam will knock some sense into him. 

“ _I wasn’t kidding_ _when I said I can’t do this anymore_ ,” Louis says in one breath.

A sob is torn from Harry’s chest violently without his consent. It leaves his throat burning and his muscles aching and he thinks he shatters into a million pieces. 

“ _ You know, it’s...it’s been a lot lately. And I think I’ve been denying it, yeah? Like maybe it’d just go away. But it hasn’t gone away. I can’t live like this, H. It’s so fucking hard to live like this. _ ”

Harry wonders if he’s dreaming. 

“ _ I’m gonna stay with Liam for a bit. We’ll get the album done, and then. Well. _ ” Harry listens to Louis sigh and feels his own lungs tighten, like they’re mirroring each other. Like the gods are still fighting for them to be together. 

“ _ I...I need time. But for now...I can’t. I can’t do it. I’m sorry, Harry. _ ”

The line goes dead, right along with a the piece of Harry’s soul Louis has held safe and sound since he first kissed him, beneath a quiet moon and two single bright, twinkling stars in the front door threshold of the  _ X Factor _ House. 

_ Stars don’t live forever _ . That’s the first thing Harry thinks. 

_ But I still love him.  _

That’s the second. 

 

▽

 

He turns off his phone when the notifications get to be too much. 

There are about forty combined missed calls from Niall and Liam; there are texts from his family, from the writers, from the band. There’s nothing from Louis. No mention of collecting his things, the dogs. Nothing. Like he’s disappeared. 

Harry figures that’s a sign for him to disappear too.

It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it. Of course, all his fantasies took place with Louis; they’d go to Hawaii, or Jamaica. They’d vanish to the mountains, where they’d be free and happy and the hopeful songs they’d written together would be  _ real.  _

Now, he just wants to go home. 

He doesn’t want the album or the tour or the band or anything. He doesn’t even want his mother or his house or his dogs or his childhood bedroom. 

He just wants Louis. And Louis is gone. 

He’ll go home, though. Just for a little while. To clear his head before he has to see Louis again. 

But how is he supposed to see Louis again? How is he supposed to live  _ without _ Louis?

Harry spirals himself into another bout of sobbing. 

He realizes, limply, after his cry, that he hasn’t eaten a proper meal since the night Louis left. He doesn’t do anything about it; just quietly acknowledges it and falls into a restless sleep; stays like that for a couple hours before he wakes, breathes hollowly into his blanket, and dozes off again. 

Without Louis, there’s not much purpose to anything, anyway. 

 

▽

 

It starts out as a letter. That’s really all it is. 

Harry’s pen quivers in his hand; the pages swirl with his teary vision, and he feels uselessly, painfully stupid. He never meant as much to Louis as Louis does to him; or maybe, sometime long ago, when Harry’s hair still curled over his forehead and Louis still had hope, Harry was Louis’ whole world too. He wonders if Louis is crying for him. Wonders how he had the courage to admit what they’ve both been thinking but never dared to say. 

_ But I still love him.  _

That’s the thing. Louis’ fallen out of love. Harry hasn’t. That’s why it hurts so much. 

_ It’s inevitable everything good comes to an end.  _

The pen moves on its own, before Harry consciously decides what to write. 

_ I know we weren’t supposed to last forever. Fate had other plans.  _

Harry rips out the paper and chucks it across the room, then picks up his journal in fury and throws that as well. It hits the wall and falls, deflated, to the floor. He picks up a cushion, then, makes to throw it...instead, he hugs it to his chest and breathes into it. It smells like Louis. No...it smells like them. Both of them. Like their life. Their family. The pizza they’d ordered three days ago; Louis’s favorite detergent.

He waits a few minutes for his heart rate to slow. Then he stands up, picks up his notebook gingerly, and sits back down. 

_ Dear Louis,  _ he writes, then scribbles it out.

_ Louis.  _ He thinks that’s good enough. 

_ It’s inevitable everything good comes to an end. It’s impossible to know what will happen next.  _

He scribbles the latter line out, then realizes why it feels so unnatural. 

Harry’s not sure how long he sits on his bed with a guitar in his lap and his journal in front of him, only that by the time he looks up from his daze the sky is deep blue out the window and the distant London daytime sounds have faded into the distance. 

The first verse is rough, but when he sings it back to himself it feels right. Like he might be okay, with this song. Like his sadness, his anger, his despair, is all justified. 

He heats up some tinned soup in a saucepan that night, then feeds the dogs and returns to his room. He writes one more chorus and half a second verse, then falls asleep with his pen still between his fingers. 

He doesn’t dream. 

 

▽

 

Harry texts Liam and Niall on the third day without Louis. 

It’s a simple message. It’s also a lie.  _ I’m okay. Thanks for the love.  _ Both of them don’t press; Niall sends a string of heart emojis and Liam replies with a nice, heartfelt couple sentences. 

Then, after a few minutes of wavering hesitation, he texts Julian that he wants to start working on a new song. 

Julian invites himself over that afternoon with a sheepish looking Liam trailing behind him. Without Louis there, opening the doors and offering everyone tea and biscuits and tipping his head back for a loud, happy laugh, everything just feels a little sad and void. Liam notices it too, which is probably why Harry’s instantly pulled into a long, warm hug. It doesn’t fix anything, but Harry’s missed having another touch. 

Harry shows them what he has, and nobody comments on the unspoken meaning behind the words hanging in the air. They both kind of know what it’s about; they all feel Harry’s loss. Harry wonders if Louis’ lonely, in Liam’s big house all by himself. 

“How’re you holding up?” Liam asks when Julian steps out to use the bathroom. 

Harry shrugs. He doesn’t want to tell Liam the truth, but lying more at this point seems a little too unbearable. 

Liam sighs, then. Like he can’t believe what’s happening.

“It’s a beautiful song,” he remarks sadly. 

Harry can’t believe it either. Doesn’t want to believe that this is the end. That the five year fight has been for naught; that they gave away their freedom to other people with the promise of it back only for the other people to win after all. 

“Thank you,” Harry accepts softly, even though the song doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to Louis.

“Do you want me to tell him anything?” Liam asks kindly when he and Julian are on their way out, song finished and titled. 

Harry shakes his head. There’s nothing left to say that isn’t already in this song. 

 

▽

 

He records it, but there’s something not quite right. 

The bridge of the song is a slow, loose guitar passage that Julian improvs on, but it’s not right. There’s something missing. Harry refuses to believe that something is Louis, so he has a meltdown instead. 

Liam hugs him as Harry sobs rawly into his shoulder. It all gets too real. Louis is gone. He doesn’t want Harry back. Not after a week. 

Harry realizes, wiping his tears on Liam’s flannel shirt, that this is the longest he’s ever gone having not spoken to Louis since before they met. 

The last chorus of the song remains still in the air, even minutes after Harry’s finished singing. There’s still something missing. Harry doesn’t have the energy to figure out what it is. 

He leaves the studio past midnight, and he’s already turning his key in the door when he realizes he left his journal behind. 

 

▽

 

It hits Harry at dusk on a Monday. 

Louis doesn’t love him anymore. 

Harry wants the universe to swallow him.

He wants to become the ice on Saturn’s rings; he wants to be a blinking star on the edge of the solar system. 

He doesn’t want to remember what it’s like to be in love alone.

 

▽

 

His journal is open when he returns to the studio. 

Harry drops to the floor when he sees the handwriting. It’s Louis’. 

The words are in the empty hole where the spoken bridge should be. They’re scribbled, neat and messy, small and loopy, like every contradiction and irony on earth. That’s Louis, too. Louis is a contradiction. Louis is a contradiction that Harry is still in love with. 

Harry runs his fingers over the words written. Their handwriting goes so well together. It makes an ache blossom in Harry’s chest and throat. 

 

_ One more taste of your lips, just to bring me back _

_ To the places we’ve been, and the nights we’ve had _

_ Because if this is it, then at least we can end it right?  _

 

The question mark at the end blinks at Harry, wondering and thoughtful. Curious. 

“Do you still love me?” Harry asks brokenly to the empty room. 

No one answers. The question mark stares. 

Harry adds one more sentence before he leaves without the journal, right before the last chorus, and just underneath Louis’ bridge.

 

_ Oh, why you wearing that to walk out of my life? _

 

▽

 

It’s been two weeks, and it’s thunderstorming.

Harry hears a knock on the door at four in the morning. 

He opens it, and his knees buckle. 

Louis Tomlinson stares at him, hair stuck to his forehead and fur-lined denim jacket drenched and soaked, blue eyes shining in the rain. He’s the most tragically beautiful thing Harry’s ever seen. 

“I still love you!” Louis cries through the thunder and the distant lightning. “Harry, I love you, please?” 

_ Please.  _

Harry steps out into the pouring, screaming night, and kisses Louis Tomlinson underneath a quiet, foggy moon, and two dim, hazy stars. 

“I still love you,” Harry whispers against sweet lips and shining eyes and starry freckles and a boy that means everything. “Please don’t leave me. Please.” 

“Never,” Louis whispers back, and it’s everything. 

 

▽

 

Louis traces  _ Love You Goodbye  _ right in between Harry’s shoulder blades.

“Your song,” he whispers. Harry’s bed isn’t so cold anymore. “It’s about me.” 

It’s not a question.    
“It’s yours,” Harry tells him softly. 

“Ours,” Louis echoes back, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

Harry’s missed him so, so much. 

“Yours.” 

“It’s sad.” Louis’ breath falls soft against Harry’s skin. “It’s not us. I don’t know that I’ll be able to sing it without crying because of what a fucking idiot I—--”

Harry kisses him and the kiss holds a thousand songs and a million more words.

It’s hard. It’s never going to stop being hard. But it’s a little easier when they’re together, and when they have a thousand songs on their side. 

 

▽ 

 

Harry doesn’t accept the writing credits. 

The song doesn’t belong to him. 

It doesn’t even belong to Louis, in the end, and that’s okay. 

Harry thinks it belongs to the universe. The sky is the only thing that will remember Harry and Louis once they’re gone;  _ Love You Goodbye _ will live in the stars until their story doesn’t have to exist anymore. 

That’s okay, too. Harry and Louis have countless more songs to give the universe.

 

**the end.**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank u [keely](http://maybetheyrefireproof.tumblr.com) for the last minute beta !  
> find me on tumblr [here](http://dystopianharry.tumblr.com) :D


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